大象传媒

REINFORCEMENT

In November, 1944, I was told that I was posted to the 2nd Battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders in the 51st(Highland) Division which was then in Holland. I was first sent to South Wales to collect a party of about 30 soldiers of the Welch Regiment who, like me, were being sent as reinforcements to Northwest Europe; they were to go with me because, presumably, there were no Welch Regiment officers or Seaforth soldiers going over, so we were apparently made for each other. Anyway, I was sent off with them to an unknown destination in the South of England for embarkation. We passed right through London, going round the Olympia link between the old Great Western and Southern Railways; it was very frustrating to pass so near to my home without being able to call in and tell the family what was happening to me.

We ended up in a converted hotel in Seaford to wait for a boat; One of the first things I had to learn was that, although I was used to describe the people of Wales as Welsh, I had to remember that their Regiment was WELCH. This was November and the weather was horrible and everything was at a standstill (if boats could stand still), so we just had to hang around aimlessly 鈥� not being able to go anywhere and with nothing to do. Finally, we were taken down to Newhaven harbour and put onto a Landing Ship, Infantry. This was a weird type of vessel - long and thin with a flat bottom and with gangways running down each side of the bows so that the ship could run right onto the shore and send its soldiers onto the beach without getting wet 鈥� or at least not very wet! However, now that the D-Day landings were over and harbours
had been captured, we were told that our destination was to be Dieppe.

All the different types of landing craft had been built in sections in factories all over the USA and later assembled in shipyards. They used whatever engines were available and I don鈥檛 know what our boat had, but I know that a friend of mine
commanded a tank landing craft which had three Sherman tank engines; these were Chrysler Multibank engines, each comprising five Cadillac car engines linked together. On one occasion, he sailed into Valetta harbour showing the flags for 鈥渕y engine is out of action鈥� and the number fourteen. He had to explain to an Admiral that he was not drunk, but that fourteen of the fifteen Cadillacs were out of action!

The Captain of the ship was a very withdrawn Welshman (not welchman); he told me where the accommodation was (actually this was rows of slatted benches down below) and then disappeared into his bridge which was a peculiar CONCRETE structure standing on the deck, looking like one of those Home Guard pillboxes which still dot the English countryside.

The storm blew and we remained in harbour, with us trying to sleep on the wooden benches for about 48 hours; every now and then a ship would limp into harbour and I can remember seeing one tank landing ship coming in with its funnel knocked flat and that didn鈥檛 look like good news. At this point, the strange Captain sent for me and told me that my Welch soldiers had broken into his ship鈥檚 stores and stolen all the cigarettes. I had to deal with this, but it seemed rather tough to have to a handle a problem between the sailors and the druids just before what appeared to be a certain trip to Davy Jones鈥檚 locker.. Luckily, the senior Welch soldier was a very wily sergeant and together we came to the conclusion that the soldiers were probably not guilty and that either the ship鈥檚 company had done it or, more probably, the Captain was himself trying to cover up a stores deficiency. So we just did nothing and that seemed to be the right decision because we never heard any more about it. Come to think of it, that was a very weird ship; I cannot remember having seen any of the crew other than the Captain 鈥� it seemed like a sort of Marie Celeste of the Channel 鈥� perhaps it is still plodding to and fro.

Eventually, we set sail into the storm. It was ghastly! The sea was coming towards us from the half-right hand direction and the flat-bottomed tub went in a peculiar corkscrew motion, climbing over the top of each wave, leaning to the left and then rolling down the other side, leaning to the right. It must have taken all day to make the crossing because we started at first light and it was dark when we finally berthed. Modern ferries take less than two hours for the trip. I wasn鈥檛 seasick, but fervently wished that I could quietly die; I stayed on deck all the time because the air was fresher there, even if I did have to see the sea coming over alternate sides of the ship as it rolled. The Welch seemed not to be good sailors and downstairs quickly became a place not to be in. Finally we sailed into Dieppe harbour and the ordeal was over.

My next destination was to be a 鈥淩einforcement Unit鈥� 鈥� the first of many 鈥攖hrough which reinforcements passed through to their Divisions. We reached it after a long drive in trucks right through the night; riding in the back of a closed truck was always unpleasant; there was a smell which was a mixture of wet battledress, cigarette smoke, sweat, stale air and exhaust fumes which always made me feel queasy and which I can clearly recall even to this day. We were billeted in a French town, the name of which I forgot at the time, but many years later on holiday in France, I identified it as Corby. The owner of the estaminet where I was settled was very disappointed to learn that I only had a few Francs and so could not buy any of his wine; this turned out to be of the variety 鈥渟pecially grown for the Wehrmacht by the growers of France and was almost undrinkable; I might only have landed the day before in France, but I was not so green that I couldn鈥檛 see through that one! This part of France had been a German Army leave area and the French tradespeople, while they enjoyed having been liberated, didn鈥檛 think that the British Soldier was as good a customer as the Germans had been. We had work to do and our pockets were not full of money. The French Resistance were incredibly brave, but I fear that not all Frenchmen were members and the rest remained very FRENCH as always!

I went through several Reinforcement Units across France, Belgium and Holland, not knowing exactly where I was. At one of them, I handed over my Welch soldiers, although by coincidence I met up with them months later in the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge. The reason why it took me so long to join the 2nd Seaforth was that the Allies had made their airborne landings across Belgium and Holland and the British forces were desperately fighting their way to link up with the Paras at Arnhem; the German Army, by a strange quirk of fate had concentrated several of their Divisions in Southern Holland for rest and training and the British were having a hard time fighting through them. So, while they were pushing forward, the Reinforcement Units had to try to keep up with them to get people like me up to the sharp end. Finally, the push ended at Nijmegen, just short of Arnhem and I finally caught up with the Battalion to which I had been posted on the 22nd November.

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